In some telecommunication equipment, a plurality of circuit boards (also referred to as blades) may be connected to a common circuit board (also referred to as a backplane). Typically, a backplane includes circuitry for interconnecting the blades. By interconnecting the blades to one another, data may be passed directly from a source blade to one or more destination blades. Some backplanes are designed to comply with one or more standards, such as the Advanced Telecommunications Computer Architecture (ATCA) specification. By complying with the ATCA specification, the number of backplane connectors for interconnecting blades may be limited. By constraining the number of connectors, many, if not all, of the backplane connectors may be consumed to provide the direct interconnectivity between the blades. Thus, a limited number (or no) backplane connectors may available for establishing dedicated higher speed connections.
Although the following Detailed Description will proceed with reference being made to illustrative embodiments, many alternatives, modifications, and variations thereof will be apparent to those skilled in the art. Accordingly, it is intended that the claimed subject matter be viewed broadly, and be defined only as set forth in the accompanying claims